Archive

H-1B visas

  • ppaw1999
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/60-minutes-examines-h-1b-130618491.html

    I watched the report on this on 60 minutes. What a kick in the teeth for these American workers. I think both parties can have equal blame for this. There should be a law against companies lobbying Congress to pass these bills.
  • Belly35
    Term limits..... Is the start to solving the problem
  • Spock
    Looks like 60 minutes actually ran an episode that didn't hug on the nuts of some liberal BS.

    The South Sudan piece was terrible
  • ppaw1999
    Belly35;1842856 wrote:Term limits..... Is the start to solving the problem[/QUOTE

    I doubt we will ever see it in our lifetime Belly.
  • jmog
    I know a few engineers working here on H-1B visas, none of which are making less than other engineers.
  • gut
    Admittedly I didn't watch the episode....but I would say just be grateful they asked you to train them, because this relocation will happen so be thankful for an extra 6-12 weeks of pay or whatever it is. You can eliminate the visa, and you can eliminate the training, but the job will still be sent overseas.

    The only answer is Trump's economic nationalism (and, LOL at one of the comments chastising 60 Minutes for only reporting this now while it's been happening for years).

    Suppose I'm a CEO. I can pay a programmer $150k a year, or go hire two programmers in China for $10k each. I can do that, or become uncompetive and slowly go out of business. What choice do I really have? If you're a true bleeding heart, you applaud the rising standard of living and prosperity in third world countries. If you're really just a socialist, then you ignore there's a global labor pool willing and able to do the same job, just as well, for much cheaper and instead blame it all on greedy capitalism. And if you're actually a communist, then you think it's prudent for the government to dictate where we buy our goods and services and how much we pay.
  • Belly35
    I've argued for years that outside foriegn contract workers must have a 6 months work permit, leave the country and not return to the states for 1 years for any other assignment and not be employed by the same company for two year. We can stop the flow of cheap labor in tech career we just have to be willing to start to remove those who are here now with new regulations and outsourcing standards criteria. Those worker must also pay a federal, state and local living expense tax for non citizen employment status.
  • ppaw1999
    Admittedly I didn't watch the episode....but I would say just be grateful they asked you to train them, because this relocation will happen so be thankful for an extra 6-12 weeks of pay or whatever it is. You can eliminate the visa, and you can eliminate the training, but the job will still be sent overseas.

    These jobs are not being sent overseas. They are bringing in workers from overseas and replacing workers here. The intent of the bill was to fill shortages in some technical fields. Instead companies are using loopholes to replace workers making a higher wage with foreign workers paying them a lower wage. The jobs are still here.
  • Zunardo
    I watched the show also. Quite the slap in the face to be told to train your replacement.

    For those with more experience in the corporate and/or IT world, other than not getting the severance pay, what would have been the consequence of refusing to train the replacement? They were going to terminate these folks, no matter what. As I understand it, IT skills are (or at least used to be) a hot commodity and folks with certifications can find work easier than most. I know it would be rough, but couldn't they have landed a spot somewhere pretty quick?

    I haven't been in that boat, but twice I applied for a promotion in my unit that I'd worked in for 25 years - both times I came in second to someone who'd never set foot in that office or worked in that field. When they showed up in my unit, I was asked to train the new person. I politely declined both times, and I never heard another word about it.
  • Heretic
    Zunardo;1842940 wrote:I watched the show also. Quite the slap in the face to be told to train your replacement.

    For those with more experience in the corporate and/or IT world, other than not getting the severance pay, what would have been the consequence of refusing to train the replacement? They were going to terminate these folks, no matter what. As I understand it, IT skills are (or at least used to be) a hot commodity and folks with certifications can find work easier than most. I know it would be rough, but couldn't they have landed a spot somewhere pretty quick?

    I haven't been in that boat, but twice I applied for a promotion in my unit that I'd worked in for 25 years - both times I came in second to someone who'd never set foot in that office or worked in that field. When they showed up in my unit, I was asked to train the new person. I politely declined both times, and I never heard another word about it.
    Or at least, sort of "fuck up" the training, so they're good at a lot of the stuff, but may not know about a couple really key facets all that well. Slip in a line or two of misinformation here and there; see who's bright enough to figure it out.

    Obviously, that sort of thought process is better for someone in good enough shape to retire or close enough to just take a menial part-time Wal-Mart greeter job for a while to get there.
  • jmog
    I work for a rather large corporation (120,000+ employees worldwide). I was part of a small firm of about 50 technicians and engineers that got bought out.

    Our accounting ladies got told that their accounting (big corporation) is all done in Mexico and that they had to use Skype to train their replacements (given a 6-9 month window/notice to train).

    They got told this in October/November (can't remember) and they are finally laid off in June of this year.

    If at any point they basically said "no, I am out" they wouldn't get their severance package in June and no unemployment because they "quit".

    This has nothing to do with H-1B Visas, but does with the "train your replacement is bull crap" portion of the thread.
  • gut
    ppaw1999;1842911 wrote:
    These jobs are not being sent overseas. They are bringing in workers from overseas and replacing workers here. The intent of the bill was to fill shortages in some technical fields. Instead companies are using loopholes to replace workers making a higher wage with foreign workers paying them a lower wage. The jobs are still here.
    Ahhhhh, ok. Yeah, that seems like something that should be fixed. Not good for the economy, at all, to bring in someone and essentially pay them a poverty wage (to say nothing of the displaced American worker).

    Maybe all you would need to do is deny companies H1B visas if unemployment claims are above a nominal threshold.
  • ppaw1999
    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-signs-%E2%80%98buy-american-hire-american%E2%80%99-executive-order-promising-to-fight-for-american-workers/ar-BBA0IF2?li=BBnb7Kz

    Glad to see the President doing something about the H-1B visas abuse.
  • gut
    Good thing he didn't do this last week or it would have been buried under all the articles about how unprepared they were for the Easter Egg Roll.

    It's pretty hilarious - NY Times has sunk to Breitbart levels since Trump won the election.